Streaming soars, but album sales and overall music consumption down in 2014

A pack of Nashville musicians are among the top-selling artists year-to-date, but overall music consumption, which includes sales and streaming, is down 3.3 percent for the first six months of 2014 compared to last year, according to a new report from Nielsen.

The decrease is driven in part by tumbling album sales, which fell 14.9 percent compared to last year. Year-to-date in 2014, 120.9 million albums have been sold. Of those albums, 62.9 million were on CDs and 53.8 million were digital album sales, down from 60.8 million in the first half of 2013. Digital track sales fell 13 percent to 593.6 million.

Vinyl album sales and on-demand streaming remain the biggest gainers, increasing 40.4 percent and 42 percent, respectively. Audio streaming was up 50.1 percent and video streaming was up 35.2 percent. In total, streaming surpassed 70 billion songs in the first half of 2014, compared to 49.5 billion in the same period last year.

Vinyl sales, still a small portion of overall music sales, hit four million, led by Jack White’s "Lazaretto," which has sold 49,100 units. Fellow Nashville rockers The Black Keys had the fourth-best selling vinyl album with "Turn Blue," released in May, which has sold 21,000 units.

“With on-demand streams surpassing 70 billion songs in the first six months of 2014, streaming continues to be an increasingly significant portion of the music industry,” says David Bakula, senior vice president of Nielsen Entertainment. “Streaming’s 42 percent year-over-year growth and vinyl LPs' 40 percent increase over last year’s record-setting pace shows interest in buying and consuming music continues to be robust, with two very distinct segments of the industry expanding substantially.”

Nashville-based country singers Eric Church and Luke Bryan both had top-ten selling albums overall. Eric Church’s "Outsiders" sold 642,000 copies through June 30, and Luke Bryan’s "Crash My Party" sold 455,000 copies.